Banking / Finance Sector

Sector Overview

The Financial Services Sector includes thousands of depository institutions, providers of investment products, insurance companies, other credit and financing organizations, and the providers of the critical financial utilities and services that support these functions.

The Financial Services Sector represents a vital component of our nation's critical infrastructure. Large-scale power outages, recent natural disasters, and an increase in the number and sophistication of cyber attacks demonstrate the wide range of potential risks facing the sector.

Financial institutions provide a broad array of products from the largest institutions with assets greater than one trillion dollars to the smallest community banks and credit unions. Whether an individual savings account, financial derivatives, credit extended to a large organization, or investments made to a foreign country, these products allow customers to:

Deposit funds and make payments to other parties;

Provide credit and liquidity to customers;

Invest funds for both long and short periods; and

Transfer financial risks between customers.

Financial institutions are organized and regulated based on services provided by institutions. Within the sector, there are more than 18,800 federally insured depository institutions; thousands of providers of various investment products, including roughly 18,440 broker-dealer, investment adviser, and investment company complexes; providers of risk transfer products, including 7,948 domestic U.S. insurers; and many thousands of other credit and financing organizations.

Resources

lnfraGard Los Angeles Members Alliance is a non-profit organization serving as a public-private partnership among U.S. businesses, individuals involved in the protection and resilience of U.S. critical infrastructures, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.